Mission: Hunt
by catfoxy
Summary: Three members of the team are preparing a mission. There is only one problem. Ethan better not find out about it before they are ready...


_Author's Note: _

_A big Thank You to all those who have taken the time to read and review my stories. I really love all the feedback you give me. It's always a joy to hear that people actually read my stuff and like it. :o)_

_As I mentioned earlier, there are several more stories currently in the works. It might take a little while to get them all finished, but they will get finished, rest assured of that. _

_Oh and, about six of those stories that are 'in the pipes' are Ethan-centered whump, so anyone who likes that will be in for a treat. ;)_

_But for today, here is a fun one with a twist at the end._

_Summary:_

_Three members of the team are preparing a mission. There is only one problem: Ethan better not find out about it before they are ready._

**Mission: Hunt**

This was one mission that was gonna be special.

Provided it didn't blow up in their faces.

Because frankly, the premise of the mission was a rather delicate one:

Surprise Ethan Hunt.

Technically, this was something that the team usually tried to avoid. Because Ethan had the tendency to react to surprises in a relatively predicable manner.

Predictable as in 'when in doubt, always shoot at the surprise.'

Granted, this concept worked rather well in the field. In fact, it might very well be why Ethan had survived all these years out in the field, becoming one of the best in the business.

The underlying problem with that approach, however, was one that the team was faced with right now:

How do you plan a surprise birthday party for a man who would most likely shoot at the birthday cake before the question of chocolate, crème or cinnamon even came up?

Never mind the little problem of the actual date.

They had no idea when Ethan's birthday really was. Sure, there had to be a date in his file. But that file was so top secret, it was locked up in the IMF data base under more security layers than the gold bars in Fort Knox.

Of course, Ethan himself wasn't talking either.

Plus, they had never seen Ethan actually celebrate his birthday, which meant that they couldn't simply deduce at least day and month by observation. As for the year…well, that was an even bigger mystery. They distinctly remembered the director of the CIA asking Ethan about that once after a rather strenuous joint mission, during which Ethan had given them all a run for their money. In response to the CIA director's joking question how old Ethan Hunt was anyway, Ethan had simply smiled at the man, and had given him one very interesting answer.

"There are some things even the CIA won't ever find out."

And just by the way Ethan had smiled, his team had known that Ethan had somehow made sure his exact birth date would only ever be known to one person only. Namely himself.

They didn't know if the CIA had ever tried finding out anyway.

They did know that Benji had tried. With his best hacking tools. And the result was a complete failure.

After that they didn't even bother asking the CIA for help, because if Benji couldn't crack the nut, the boys at Langley wouldn't either.

So.

That was that problem.

Still, never let it be said that Ethan Hunt's team wasn't good at improvising.

They were intent on throwing Ethan a birthday party, so that was what Ethan was gonna get. Lacking the actual birth date, they had picked a day by choice. One that Ethan would probably chuckle at, once he realized what the significance was. Brandt had come up with it. He had chosen the day when Ethan had done his crazy stunt of falling head first out of that Dubai skyscraper. Ethan would most likely have died that day, had Brandt and Jane not reacted in time. So, they decided that that day could in some ways be considered a new birthday of sorts.

It was also rather convenient that the anniversary of that day was coming up tomorrow. Hence the heating up of their surprise party plans.

Now all they needed was a cake. And a present.

Simple, one would think.

But whatever else IMF agents were good at – baking had never been covered in any of the classes Benji or Brandt had taken. That had left Jane to give the two of them a rather meaningful glare, and the grudging offer of a deal. Jane was willing to handle the baking of the cake, provided that Brandt and Benji acquired the necessary ingredients AND a present for Ethan.

Benji's hand had immediately whipped up at the mentioning of 'cake ingredients', which was admittedly the easier one of the two jobs set out by Jane. That left Brandt to try and figure out a present for Ethan.

Before Benji had gone out to the supermarket, Jane had made him a list of what she would need for the cake. It was a _detailed_ list. And she had left Benji with strict instructions not to come back without even one of the items listed. The slightly fearful look in Benji's eyes at her unspoken 'or else' threat was enough to make Benji consider this an order of 'top priority'. He had practically run out the door in his hurry to get to his car.

Brandt was still in the 'what to get Ethan' stage of his planning. It was not a simple question, really. He had already ruled out the usual stuff: socks, necktie and bowling ball. Ethan would probably shoot _him_ instead of the cake if he wrapped a bow around any of that stuff.

Some of the more 'fun-oriented' presents were also out of the question. Ethan already had the best gun, the sharpest knife and the best-looking pair of sunglasses they had ever seen on an agent.

So Brandt knew he would have to come up with something…unique. Something that probably couldn't be bought. He'd thought all morning about it. And finally, after lunch, he had an idea. He wasn't sure if he could get it, but he was determined to try. Even if that meant calling in some favors - and breaking a few IMF rules along the way.

-o-

On the day of the big event, the three agents were more nervous than they had ever been on any mission. Hell, if anybody had offered them a highly-dangerous, suicidal, no-chance-of-succeeding-at-it mission right at this moment, they would have probably volunteered for it on the spot, knowing that that mission would still be easier than what they were about to do.

But, since the cake was ready and Brandt said he had found the perfect present for Ethan, there was no really good excuse to back out of this now.

As far as schedules went, they knew that Ethan was set for a meeting with the Secretary from 7-9 a.m. for today. After that, Ethan had them scheduled for a team meeting about next week's mission.

That team meeting was set for 11 a.m.

They decided that this would be when they would spring the surprise on him.

Benji and Jane had taken it upon themselves to give their team room a once-over, putting up decorations and smuggling the cake into the room.

Ethan was meanwhile kept under close surveillance by Brandt.

What with Brandt's experience of covering Ethan in Croatia, he had been deemed to have the best chance of staying unnoticed by Ethan. Yes, they all knew how badly that whole thing with Julia had ended, but still. As far as they knew, Ethan had never known that Brandt was there. So, Jane put Brandt in charge of keeping an eye on Ethan's whereabouts, to make sure that she and Benji would have at least a ten minute warning beforehand, should Ethan approach the team room early.

By 10.30 a.m., everybody was getting a bit nervous. Brandt had just lost track of Ethan somewhere around the second floor. Since he knew his chances of picking up Ethan's trail anew were minimal, Brandt had immediately broken off his surveillance and joined his teammates in the team room. The three of them were now sitting on the floor inside the room – right next to their lockers - with their backs to the table on which the cake stood. They were hiding behind the far side of the table, so they would be able to jump out behind it as soon as Ethan entered the room.

Now, it was just a matter of waiting for the clock to tick down. 23 minutes to go.

Unfortunately, waiting idly was something neither of them was particularly good at. It simply gave them too much time to think of what might go wrong.

"Did you put all the candles on the cake?" Benji asked in a sudden panic.

"Yes, I did." Jane answered, her voice relatively calm.

"What about the present, is it fully wrapped up?" Benji turned to Brandt.

"Of course." Brandt exclaimed, "What do you think, that I left half of it _un_wrapped?"

Hell, the whole wrapping had been so easy, it hadn't even taken Brandt much wrapping paper. The present was small in size. But Brandt was pretty certain that Ethan would still like it.

"Okay, but did anybody-?" Benji started again.

"Whatever you intend to ask next, yes – we – did!" Brandt was getting a bit unnerved, because he feared Benji was gonna keep this up for the next nineteen minutes.

Benji immediately countered with a nervous nod.

"Right, sorry. But…well, I was just gonna ask if anybody had thought of taking the bullets out of Ethan's gun last night? You know he's gonna have his gun with him, right? We really should have switched the bullets, put in blanks or maybe even just taken them out, or maybe…"

Brandt and Jane looked at each other.

And they realized that Benji might have a point. They should have thought of that.

"Uhm…no…I think that didn't happen." Jane admitted a bit uncertain.

Brandt also shook his head slowly, admitting that he hadn't been anywhere near Ethan's gun, either.

"Oh great…," Benji groaned, "that means he's gonna shoot at us as soon as the first one yells out 'SURPRISE!'"

Benji was close to panic now. And fully convinced he had joined a suicide commando.

"Don't worry, he won't shoot at us." Jane tried to calm Benji.

"Why not?" Benji asked right back, entirely unconvinced.

"Well…" Jane began thinking of a good reason.

"I'm waiting."

"Okay, so maybe he _will_ shoot," Jane was getting a bit exasperated, "But hey, Ethan has pretty good aim. I'm sure he would go for something non-vital at first, and by the time he switches targets, he'll have realized it's just us."

"Great. Any volunteers for who'll go first in jumping out at him?" Benji sarcastically countered Jane's smirk.

Jane's smile faltered a bit as she realized Benji was asking her to do the honors.

Then they both quickly looked at Brandt.

"Okay, I'll go first." Brandt eventually agreed, putting an end to the discussion.

It was ten to 11 now. They knew Ethan always came a bit early for these team meetings. Any second now he would be walking in through that door.

Benji kept watching the door from behind the table like a hawk.

Jane was watching the clock on the wall. And Brandt was watching his wrist watch.

That is until a shrill ringing sound almost gave all of them a heart attack.

"Jeeeeez! What _was_ that?" Benji inhaled sharply, as he tried to get his pulse back under control. That moment of shock had cost him at least a year of his life.

"It's you, I think." Jane pointed out helpfully a moment later, once she had calmed enough to realize where the sound was coming from.

Benji looked perplexed as he saw Jane pointing at his jacket.

"Your cellphone." Brandt helped him out further.

"Oh. Right. Sorry." Benji quickly scrambled for his phone, opening it with one hand, while his eyes returned to keeping a close watch on the door.

"Hello?" Benji whispered into the phone.

For a moment there was silence on the other end of the line. Then a voice came on the line:

"Hey Benji, it's Ethan."

Benji quickly held a hand over the lower part of his phone, mouthing to the others that it was Ethan on the line, before he replied.

"Yeah, hi Ethan, uhm… what can I do for you?"

"Oh…not much, actually. I am just on my way to our meeting, and I was wondering if you could reach behind yourself for a second and check in my locker for that report I must have left there yesterday."

"Oh, sure. No problem, I'll just…" And then Benji suddenly froze.

Brandt and Jane looked at him with questioning eyes, wondering what was wrong.

They really didn't the like the sudden paleness on Benji's face.

"What's wrong?" Jane stage-whispered.

Benji didn't answer immediately. Instead, Jane saw his gaze go up towards the ceiling, forebodingly checking the four corners of the room. Benji's paleness took on another shade of white as his eyes spotted something in the one corner right behind them.

"Oh no…" Benji groaned.

It was enough to make Jane and Brandt look up as well. And almost instantly they saw what Benji had seen.

"Oh crap. Is he…?" Jane asked incredulously.

"Yes. I think he is." Benji nodded, faced with the overwhelming evidence.

The little red dot beneath the surveillance camera in the right upper corner of the room was blinking.

Somebody could see them.

As Benji slowly put the phone back to his ear, he could hear Ethan's voice asking slightly amused:

"So...do you mind if I come in now, or should I wait until Jane had a chance to rearrange that second candle from the right that seems to be a bit lopsided there on the edge?"

They could all hear the non-commital smirk in Ethan's voice.

"You can see us?" Benji asked eventually, although the question was really academic. There was no doubt any longer that Ethan had outsmarted them all.

"Plain as day." Ethan said suddenly – from somewhere right behind them.

Ethan Hunt was patiently standing in the open door.

The door that they hadn't even noticed going open. They had been too busy listening to the phone in Benji's hand.

Seeing Ethan standing there nonchalantly, they got up from the floor behind the table one by one. A bit sheepishly. More than a bit, in Benji's case.

"Am I right in assuming this is intended to be _my_ birthday party?" Ethan asked with a touch of amusement.

It _was_ a likely assumption.

The name on the birthday day cake said "ETHAN HUNT" in big, yellow letters.

There was no use in hiding the evidence now. So, they decided to not even try.

"Uhm…'Happy Birthday'?" Jane congratulated Ethan with a brave smirk.

Seeing Jane's 'when in doubt, attack' approach, Benji followed suit:

"Yeap, Happy Birthday, Ethan!" Benji smiled at his team leader, quickly shutting the phone in his hand.

"Like they said. Happy Birthday, Ethan." Brandt congratulated his team leader as well.

For a vague moment, they didn't know whether Ethan would accept the congratulations. Or whether he might even be angry at them for throwing this party, when celebrating his birthday obviously wasn't something he normally liked to do.

But after a moment, Ethan's unreadable expression turned into one they could read. And it was an expression of honest acceptance. A soft smile appeared on Ethan's face, the general wariness in his eyes easing up, as he took a step forward, and his gaze wandered towards each of them and then over to the cake on the table.

"You really baked a cake for me?" Ethan smiled softly.

"Yep, we sure did." Benji piped up proudly.

Although he quickly backpedaled when Jane 'accidentally' stepped onto his foot.

"Right, uhm, _Jane_ backed the cake, we simply…provided the ingredients."

"Thank you." Jane nodded at Benji.

"You're welcome." Benji nodded back at Jane with a quick grin.

Then Brandt spoke up, approaching Ethan with a small wrapped box. Ethan looked at him curiously.

"This is something we want to give you as a birthday gift. But you don't have to open it now. In fact, it might be better if you open it tonight when you're home."

That surprised Ethan a bit.

He wondered what was in the box, but gently took it as Brandt held it out to him.

Benji and Jane simply nodded in agreement with Brandt.

Brandt had explained to them the nature of the present beforehand. He hadn't told either of them what exactly was in there, but he had assured them that the content of the box would mean a lot to Ethan, and that Ethan would probably appreciate it if he would be alone when he opened it.

So they had agreed that Ethan was to merely take the present and keep it with him until he could open it later by himself.

"Well…in that case...thank you. Really." There was a true tone of gratefulness in Ethan's voice. He then looked at the wrapped little box for another long moment, before he put it safely away into his jacket pocket.

Then he looked back up at his team.

"So. I guess that leaves the cake, huh?" He made eye contact with each of the members of his team.

Ethan could practically see their nervousness at what he would say next. In fact, their nervousness was only rivaled by their obvious eagerness to get his permission to dig into the cake.

"You all know there are rules about this..." Ethan began, before he let them off the hook, "…but considering the mitigating circumstances, I think I'll suspend the 'no food in a meeting' rule for the time of this meeting."

Benji's smile went up.

So did Jane's and Brandt's.

Never let it be said that agents didn't appreciate cake. Especially if it was self-made chocolate bourbon cake.

The team meeting that followed was a good one. The work got done. But so did the cake. They also managed to talk Ethan into accompanying them for a drink at a nearby restaurant at the end of the day.

After the one drink they all switched to non-acoholic beverages – what with having another mission coming up soon – but it was still a nice evening all around, one which they all enjoyed. Even Ethan had to admit in the end that it had been a nice way to end the day.

-o-

About an hour after they had wished each other a good night, Ethan reached his apartment. As he entered his living room and threw the keys onto the low desk between the couch and the TV, he put his jacket onto the armrest of the couch and then let himself sink onto the pillow. His head back, he closed his eyes for a second.

What a day.

First, the surprise at the team room - which almost did surprise him, had he not gotten that strange tingling at the back of his neck that had made him check out the surveillance cams.

Then there was the cake. And the drink his team had treated him to at the restaurant.

And then … there was this present.

Remembering it, he looked over at the jacket next to himself, and reached into the side pocket, slowly pulling out the small box that Brandt had given him in the name of the whole team.

He understood that Brandt had been the one to select the present, and that the rest of his team had trusted Brandt to select something that Ethan would like.

For a moment, Ethan simply looked at the box, before he slowly began unwrapping the paper. Then he opened the box.

Inside it, he first saw a small slip of paper. It was folded on top of a second thin lid inside the box, which was obviously intended to keep one from seeing the present before reading the slip of paper. The note had Brandt's handwriting on it.

"_Hey Ethan,_

_I know we've put Croatia behind us. And I'm sure glad we did, believe me. _

_But there is one thing I think you might want to keep from that day when they took Julia. I know you have been looking for it for a long time, even though IMF told you it was lost. Well, it wasn't. I tracked it down. And until you manage to find a way to give this back to its rightful owner, I think you're the best qualified person to keep this in a safe place. Happy Birthday, Ethan."_

As Ethan wondered what Brandt had found for him, he put the slip of paper down.

Then he slid the cover off the second part of the small box.

And he almost dropped the box.

For a moment, all he could do was stare at the little golden item framed by red velvet.

Inside the box was Julia's wedding ring.

He thought it had been lost forever. By the time Ethan had found Julia and rescued her from her kidnappers, the ring had somehow disappeared. Julia figured she must have lost it in the initial struggle.

Ethan had always wanted to find that ring again – so that one day he might be able to give it to Julia again.

He didn't know when that day would come, if it ever would, but when it did - he swore himself that he would give Julia again what was hers. His heart – and the ring with which he had promised her his love for the rest of his life.

"Thank you, guys." Ethan whispered as he felt a small tear threaten to blur his vision.

He knew that there weren't many people on this planet who would truly understand how much this meant to him. Jane and Benji thought they knew some of it. Brandt had been allowed a glimpse of the truth. But there was one thing even Brandt probably didn't know.

The day that Julia had been taken…that had not been just an ordinary day on the calendar. Until the moment that Julia had been taken, that day had been headed for a celebration.

Ethan Hunt's real birthday.

In fact, Julia had been teasing him all morning about what presents she was going to give him once he would come back to her from his morning run.

A run, which he did eventually return from - only to find Julia gone.

It was the reason why he never celebrated his real birthday anymore.

Not that he had much interest in celebrating his own birthday in the first place, but after the events in Croatia, Ethan had simply erased his own birthday from his mind – he would certainly never celebrate that day again.

As he looked at the ring before him now, however, he decided that there might be one concession he was willing to make.

He had seen how his team had enjoyed planning this little surprise for him. And he knew that – although they would never find out about his real birthday – he wanted to give them something back.

So, getting up from the couch in one smooth motion, carrying the little box over to his office desk, Ethan put the ring in the safe place where he also kept his own wedding ring – and he came to a decision.

He would celebrate his birthday again.

Not his old one.

But the birthday his team had given him today.

Because today was not bogged down by bad memories. Today was not a day he'd rather forget. Today he did not lose Julia.

Today he had gotten something back that reminded him of her. Something good. Something that was worth celebrating.

Today had been a great birthday.

And he was grateful his team had given it to him.

THE END


End file.
